Security checkpoints permit authorities, such as governments or private enterprises, to verify an individual's identity and other credentials of the individual prior to permitting that individual into a particular area. Security checkpoints can be found at borders, such as borders between countries and borders around restricted areas within countries and other exclusion zones; transportation hubs (such as airports), military or other security sensitive areas and zones, train stations, bus stations, ports and shipping dockyards, hospitals, judiciary courts, buildings and vaults for computer servers or datacenters, police stations, laboratories; event venues such as stadiums and concert halls; at and within buildings such as office buildings, political institutions and research facilities; construction sites, banks, hotels; and other places where it is desired to confirm the validity of a security article permitting access and the identity of an individual or whether an individual is permitted to access a particular area.
Security articles are usually protected by several layers of different security elements or features, which are chosen from different technology fields, manufactured by different suppliers, and embodied in different constituting parts of the security article. To break the protection of the security article, the counterfeiter would need to obtain all of the implied materials and to get access to all of the required processing technology, which is a hardly achievable task. Security features, e.g. for security articles, can generally be classified into “covert” security features and “overt” security features. The protection provided by “covert” security features relies on the concept that such features require specialized equipment and knowledge for detection, whereas “overt” security features rely on the concept of being detectable with the unaided human senses.
Currently used apparatuses and methods for authenticating a security article and identifying a user of said article, so as to assess if the security article is genuine and if the user is the authorized user of said article, exhibit several shortcomings. They are in particular slow, time consuming, expensive, complex, require human interventions and expensive personnel, and can sometimes fail in the assessment of the genuineness of the security article and in the identification of the user.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for authenticating a security article so as to assess whether the security article is genuine and, whether the user is an authorized user of the security article. Preferably, the apparatus and method are improved with regard to one or more of safety, reliability, speed, cost, ease of operation, and automation.